On a sunny afternoon in the Spring, a young
boy and girl
walked together on their way to town. The brother and sister
enjoyed these sojourns because they usually ended up treating
themselves to a large ice cream cone from McDonald's before returning
home.

As they passed by, local cattle
could be seen (and
smelled) munching on dried grasses, expressing leftovers from the
opposite ends when they felt the urge. They heard the faraway sounds
of bossy roosters ordering their ladies about the fields. Neighborhood
goats walked nearby, following the fence lines in an
effort to convince the walkers to produce a snack. Birds of many
varieties flew overhead, hoping that the walkers would stir up the
local insects, distracting them sufficiently to become a meal.

A mile or so into their journey,
the old saw mill came
into view. The factory had closed down a dozen years before, lumber
becoming at first difficult to get, then next to impossible, and
finally slowing down to the point where the mill was unable to pay
its employees. Finally, the doors had been locked and equipment
lined up in front for a quick sale. Much of the machinery had been
sold off. A few pieces had been abandoned to the ravages of weather
and the salt-water laced breezes.

“What's that?”, asked the girl, pointing to
a yellow swathe of color that was too large to be a bush or flower. The
boy, who had little interest in flowers, but who could fix
anything with moving parts, was driven by curiosity to see what lay
partially hidden beneath the tangled weeds.

“It's an old forklift”, said the boy,
“rusted out, dirty, tangled with blackberry vines., paint faded
until it nearly melded with the dead grasses.” “Useless!”,
he repeated, but the challenge of fixing the impossible stirred
within him.

Once home, the boy began to pester
his mom to drive
the flat bed trailer to the field where the old forklift was located,
so that it could be moved back to the home. Mom, seeing the benefit
of having a project which would entice her maturing son to work in
the yard for several months, agreed.

When it was loaded, a cloud of
dust filled the air. An old beehive ruptured from the movement, causing
the inhabitants to
protest the invasion and slow down the rescue. A number of small
lizards scurried out of the machine and into the underbrush. Gummy
brown-flaked water dribbled from the innards onto the rescuers,
staining their clothing.

At last, the sad old machine sat
on four flat tires in
the yard. Dad took a brief look, shook his head from side to side,
and said nothing. Mom imagined the day she would have to haul the
sorry thing to the Dump. The boy stood nearby looking like a
conquering soldier who had just returned home with the spoils of war.

Every
day after school the boy worked until dinner time on the old
forklift. He began by removing the wheels, chains, tines, and rotted
gas tank. Now he accessed the motor case with its rusted walls,
finding a nonworking ignition switch, rusted out spark plugs, decayed
wiring between the two, and engine pistons coated with years of
accumulated grime. After three days, he had scraped all traces of
rust from inside the motor case and protected his work with a thin
coat of rust-proof paint. The pistons, scrubbed bare with rubbing
alcohol shined silvery in the sun. A man in the car parts store took
an interest in the boy's project. Soon the guts of the forklift
shone with new parts, plugs, and wiring. When the key was turned,
the engine satisfied them both by purring like a hungry cougar.

The wheels and tires were a big
problem because the
tire size was now uncommon and the design of the wheels was no
longer in use. After an extensive internet search, the boy found an
old man in a pulley factory who knew just about everything there was
to know about tires and wheels. Three weeks later, four big boxes
were delivered next to the forklift.

There was a third child in the
forklift-rescue family,
a young boy. Joey spent his days in a wheelchair unable to walk on
his own. He loved watching his older brother fix things and he
always helped him find the necessary tools. On the day the new
wheels and tires went on the forklift, Joey asked for a ride,
whereupon his big brother bungeed his chair into the machine's frame
and away they went.

The
ride was rough because the steering wheel had not yet been cleaned
and it seized up without any warning. Both boys hooted and hollered
as the old machine, going too fast for the task at hand, putted back
and forth on the road, stopping only when it was time for dinner.
During the meal, the boys chatted happily and decreed satisfactorily
that the forklift would henceforth be called “Palley.”

Now the boy tackled Palley's
exterior. He carefully
scraped the tines until raw metal shined anew. The tines were
reattached and coated with a rust preventative paint. After being
sanded, the newly painted machine took on a bright yellow, sunny
exterior. The steering wheel was carefully removed, cleaned, and
heavily greased to cure the machine of its time-induced “psychomotor
epilepsy”. Lastly, new chains were hooked to the lifting
mechanism and it was done.

Palley now rested in the sunshine
of the back yard,
proud, able and ready. His boy wondered if there would ever be work
for this magnificent machine. Then, a call came from the local 4H
club. They wanted their members (along with their goats) to ride on
the float in the Forth of July Parade. One boy was in a
wheelchair. It required four men to lift him onto the float, but at
the end of parades this help was often unavailable and he became
stuck waiting. While the boy held his goat in his lap, Palley lifted
the boy in his chair high atop the float, to a cheering crowd. At
the end of the Parade, when Palley arrived to take him down, everyone
knew about the wonderful machine that the older boy had rescued from
the weeds.

Epilogue: Palley became a workhorse for
the disabled. For many years, this
magnificent machine loaded and unloaded seniors whose vehicle had no
lift. It removed debris from accident scenes in order to reach the
injured. Palley was always on call to help disabled children to move
about.

What
Pally treasured most of all were his trips up and down the road next
to the house with Joey strapped to his frame, big brother hooting and
hollering commands from the rear.

When
he finished high school, the boy who had rescued
Palley opened a large shop. The sign outside said simply “Fix
It –Anything that Moves”. In later years, Palley held
vigil beneath the sign, parked and resting in the sunshine, reminding
everyone what a determined worker could do. Business was brisk from
the very beginning for the young man's skills and good works
had
preceded him.